


Origins

by AnotherNamelessGhoul



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, I'm not a sadist I swear, I'm sorry I like hurting my favorite characters, Probably not a commonly shared headcanon, TW blood and depictions of injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-12 17:17:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15999767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherNamelessGhoul/pseuds/AnotherNamelessGhoul
Summary: Dewdrop has a rough start of things before he ekes out a place in his new home. Sometimes, even when you find your spot in life, the old demons don't want to let go.





	1. In the beginning

   

Aether woke, quite abruptly, to the sound of someone unceremoniously kicking his bedroom door open and turning the lights on. He instinctually threw an arm across his face to try and block some of it out and groaned out a swear.

“Aether.”

Aether sat up a little, propping his back with the pillows. “Papa? What are you doing here?” He fought back the surge of adrenaline that had brought his claws out. “What time is it?”

“Just after three.” The third Emeritus sounded distracted, waving the question off with one ungloved hand.

If Emeritus was out and about the Church only half-dressed, something serious had to be going on. Aether pushed himself up the rest of the way and was met with the smell of blood, thick hot iron filling his nose and throat. He was awake then, instantly snapped out of his sleepy stupor. He pushed out of the bed and tossed on a pair of sleep pants and a t-shirt, running a hand through his hair to press down the bedhead. “What’s happening?”

“A new bandmember has arrived. He was summoned forth at the witching hour, as Papa Nihil decreed.”

“I’m aware of how summonings work, Papa. You forget I’ve been a part in my share over the centuries. I was unaware one was planned for tonight, however.” He caught another heavy whiff from somewhere down the corridor, most definitely blood, and ghoul blood by the note of sulfur behind it. The hair on the back of his neck raised.

Apparently finding it easier to show him than try and explain the situation, Emeritus grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the hallway. Aether noted that they weren’t going in the direction of the infirmary, and he wondered if that meant something good or very, very bad. He struggled to keep up as the smaller man nearly sprinted to the cold stone room that most summoning and spells took place in. There was a small crowd of sisters and ghouls gathered along the perimeters, all looking helpless, like they didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. They cleared a path for Aether and Emeritus.

“Unholy fuck.” Aether’s breath caught in his throat. “Who did this?” He slid down to his knees, blood immediately soaking up through the knees of his pants and the tail of his shirt. The little ghoul was lying in fetal position, eyes squeezed shut, body rattling with every breath. Aether couldn’t find any particular source of blood, there was just so much of it and coming from seemingly everywhere.

“He came to us like this. It seems he was rejected from his tribe. Papa Nihil was right to speed up the day of the summoning, or we surely would have lost him.” Emeritus kneeled down and lay a hand on the ghoul’s cheek. The ghoul made no effort to move or strike the hand away. A very bad sign.

“Someone get a basin with some very hot water and rags,” Aether waved in the general direction of the gathered clergy members, “And someone go find Earth.” A few of them dashed away down the hall to retrieve the needed items.

“Are you sure he’s the one we were meant to summon?” Air asked, from somewhere over their shoulder. “It doesn’t seem that this one is destined to live through the night.”

“Nihil doesn’t make mistakes,” Emeritus said simply. “If he says that this is the ghoul for our band then we must believe him and insure their full recovery.”

The breathing was the most alarming thing, ragged and rattling as if every inhalation were a struggle. Aether situated his hands on either side of the ghoul’s chest and slowly started feeling downwards. The ghoul twitched, tried to snap at him, but was too weak. Aether moved one hand to its temple to establish an empathic link, through which he hoped he could send calming energy, mumbling soothing nothings in ghoulish. He continued to feel the ghoul’s chest wall and it made a sound like a garbled keen and arched up off the stone, eyes snapping open, wild with agony and rage. Aether rubbed his thumbs over the ghoul’s temples, shaking with the stabs of pain he was getting through their link.

“He’s broken ribs, at least 4, and it’s punctured his lung.” Aether shuddered a sigh. Someone thrust a basin of water in front of him, and he dampened a rag and started mopping up blood. It was pouring from the small ghoul’s nose, as well as his mouth where several teeth had been knocked loose and shattered. One horn was shorn clean off, the edges jagged, the biggest insult that one could bestow on a ghoul. There were claw marks across his stomach, but blessedly not deep enough to enter the abdominal cavity, and cuts and bruises over almost every inch of flesh.

Earth set a hand on his shoulder and made him jump. “Can you help me make something for the pain?” Aether asked, gesturing vaguely to the ghoul in front of him. “There’s only so much that my powers can do. Something for pain and something for infection, maybe? He’s definitely got a fever and some of these cuts look nasty.”

Earth said nothing, but turned back towards his room, and Aether was glad that they were so attuned to each other that words weren’t needed.

Once most of the blood was cleaned up, Aether tossed the soiled pile of rags to the side. “Everyone stay out of my way,” he warned, and the stragglers that were left further backed to the corners, Emeritus the only one that stayed close, ready to step in where needed. Aether gave a silent nod of thanks in his direction.

“This is gonna hurt, mate.” It was going to hurt him, too, and he could have broken the link until he got the ghoul situated, but that would mean agony to the poor creature without the comfort of quintessence dulling the wounds, and Aether couldn’t bring himself to do it. He slipped his arms under the ghoul, and in one quick motion that he hoped would hurt less than a slow process, he lifted them up into his arms like a child. The ghoul cried out once, sharp and piercing, making everyone in the room jump, and then faded into quiet whimpers.

“I’m sorry, but you’re going to get sicker if I leave you lying on the cold floor all night, yeah?” His arms shook with exertion of keeping the link going as he carried the ghoul back to his quarters. He sat down on his bed with the ghoul curled in his lap, and then propped his back with pillows so that he was lying up and the ghoul was resting across his chest. He closed his eyes and rested his hands on the wounded ribs, concentrating his power, hoping to feel the breathing ease and even out. He could see Papa watching him from the doorway, but it was too much effort to say anything else, so he gave a hand gesture that he hoped meant he was alright, and settled himself in for a long, exhausting night


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the incredible wait time between chapters. Senior year of college is a bear. Hopefully I can get the rest done a bit quicker for y'all.

The healing was exhausting, knitting together broken bones, torn and frayed sinew, damaged flesh, but every time Aether started to drift off, head lolling unsupported to the side or down to his chest, another stab of pain would come through the empathic link he had established and bring him back to reality. They needed to be in the infirmary but it was all the way across the church and moving the poor ghoul again seemed like a particularly bad idea.

“Are you alright?”

Aether’s purple eyes slid open. He hadn’t even heard anyone come in. Papa had left him alone some time ago, and he had been in silence since.  
“Earth.” It was a relief. The burden of keeping the battered creature alive was resting heavy, too heavy on his shoulders. “Thank you for helping.”

Earth nodded. “Help me sit him up so he can drink this.” He held some sort of amber fluid in a sealed flask. 

The ghoul woke up when lifted, but barely. Aether moved as gently as possible to shift the damaged body upwards. “We need you to drink this. It’ll help.”

The ghoul’s jaw locked tighter shut in response. Aether sighed and caught Earth’s look. He seemed to understand and steadied the ghoul’s head. It wasn’t hard to get his mouth open because he was so weak, but Aether was careful to avoid the razor-sharp teeth as he held the ghoul’s mouth with one hand and popped the cork out of the bottle with the other. He poured the liquid in and tilted the ghoul’s head back until he swallowed convulsively. The ghoul coughed and then retched, a string of saliva leaking from his lips and pooling between them on the bed. The strain awakened the damaged lung and ribs, and Aether felt white hot pain through his own chest, his breath stolen by it for a moment. The link wavered, but he managed to keep it up.

“No no no.” Earth muttered in ghoulish, rubbing small circles across the ghoul’s stomach, trying to get him to lay back again while Aether recovered. “You have to keep it down. It’s going to help you.”

The medicine kicked into effect surprisingly fast, a buzz of warm relief coursing across the connection that made the both of them go limp. Earth hummed as he took out a tin of salve and started working at the cuts and lacerations. 

“Tiniest ghoul I think I’ve ever seen,” he muttered, glancing at Aether. “Can’t weigh more than, what, seventy pounds?”

“You don’t have a whole lot of room to talk, Earth.” He gave him a wan smile. “Once we get him healed up and fed, he’ll be alright. Just gotta get through tonight first.”

“What element does he control, can you tell?” He pulled his hand back as he grazed a particularly sensitive wound and the small ghoul’s tail whipped around to weakly lash at him. 

“None, maybe. I can’t find it through the link. Maybe he’s like Cowbell? Or maybe he’s just too weak to tell.” He let his head fall back for a second and then pulled himself back awake. “You should go to bed. We’ll be alright, I think.”

“Are you going to get some sleep?”

Aether gave a small laugh. “Not likely. If I go to sleep and this new spawn dies, the Church will have my head on a pike and I’ll be back in Hell faster than you can blink.”

Earth nodded. “Then I guess I’m staying and keeping company.”

The small form in Aether’s arms went limp as the ghoul finally drifted into unconsciousness and the other two sat sharing in the silence and wondering what they were going to do.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how long this piece is going to go. I've got little chunks here and there all over my laptop that need strung together, if anyone is interested in its continuation.


End file.
